Isaiah 14:14. "I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High." This is part of a taunt Isaiah promises the Israelites will take up against the king of Babylon once their exile in that land is over. The king will have been allowed such leeway by God, he will come to think of himself as a god. Having allowed himself, in his prideful mind, to ascend to the heights of heaven and be like the Most High, the king will have a long and very painful fall. Thus, this taunt says "You too have become as weak as we! You have become like us! Your pomp is brought down to Sheol ... maggots are the bed beneath you and worms are your covering." Isaiah 14:10-11.

On Christmas day, my post dealt with God telling Zedekiah that he would not side with Judah and would instead fight on the side of the Babylon. Today we are hearing Him promise to bring Babylon's king as low as the worms. So is God fickle? Why does he fight with Babylon to conquer Judah, and then punish them so terribly? The answer revolves around God's special relationship with the Jews and the way He uses their story in the Old Testament to teach all of us His ways.

The Jews are the people God is concerned with in the Old Testament. They are the chosen people - His promises were made to them. They have a covenant with God, in which the other people of the world are not included (we will be, later, when Jesus establishes the "new and everlasting covenant", and since God is outside of time, we do not know how this covenant is extended to the gentiles of the Old Testament, but we know that God loved them and has a plan for them, as well). So in the Old Testament, it is all about the Jews. God is not being fickle towards Babylon and its king, He is just focused on the Jews right now. He is teaching and leading them to the place He will eventually lead all of us. The Jews had broken the covenant they made with God and would not return, so God allowed Babylon, and its king Nebuchadnezzar, to conquer them. God never, though, made a covenant with Babylon, and it was ultimately dealt with as its actions deserved; requited according to its deeds.

The ultimate downfall of Babylon was justice, but it took a very long time (God's justice often takes a lot longer than we would like). Babylon became a most powerful kingdom, and came to credit that power and glory to themselves and their false gods. Nothing that is not from God can remain forever, and so Babylon fell. Note, though, that Nebuchadnezzar did eventually have a personal encounter with the God of Israel, and came to see Him as the true God. In Daniel 4:28-36, God tells Nebuchadnezzar that he will be driven from men, live among beasts, and made to eat grass "until you have learned that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will." After suffering this humiliation for seven years, Nebuchanezzar returned to his senses and "blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives for ever." God then restored Nebuchanezzar's kingdom to him, and Babylon got a reprieve from its punishment. (Another lesson - the attitude of a country's leader towards God matters a lot to the well being of that country's people!) 

The Jews in the Old Testament can be seen as a "type" for us. Only they knew the one true God, but now we all do (and we have a responsibility to tell and welcome those who do not); only they had a covenant with God, but now we all do, if we choose to accept it and keep it; and only they were saved from their iniquities over and over again, but now we all can be, because the Savior has come for all of us. Babylon, too, is a type, a stand-in for the false kingdom of this world that will lure many away from the New Covenant. In the end, though, the metaphorical Babylon will fall, as well (see Revelation 18:2-3 - "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! It has become a dwelling place of demons, a haunt of every foul spirit ... for all nations have drunk the wine of her impure passion, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich with the wealth of her wantoness."). Ultimately, after that fall of Babylon, the Kingdom of God will be established for all who renounce their own pride and choose to live under the rule of the one, true, trustworthy, loving, and merciful King of the Universe. Personally, I can't wait!